


message keeps gettin' clearer

by Lauren (LaurenThemself)



Category: Geist: Before the Gate (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21818839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurenThemself/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: Moments of peace are hard to come by when you're dead. Boh and the Ticking Man find one together.





	message keeps gettin' clearer

The stage calls.

Boh and the Ticking Man pass silently through the walls, between the rows of seats, down the carpeted aisle with its gently musty scent, following the call. They are aware of their Bound Ones outside, making mouth-noises at each other in a manner that these two have forgotten, but those are small sounds; the call of the stage is Sound.

When they reach it, Sound resolves from the ephemeral  _ come here come here come here, remember remember remember _ , into a tune that Michelle Curial would recognize if she weren’t currently curled into an exhausted ball on Juliet’s bed, Malcolm sitting beside her and stroking her hair as she clutches her fool’s gold, now wrapped in one of the multitude of velvet pouches that  Craven Crystals sells so as not to further harm her hands.

Strauss.  _ An der schönen blauen Donau _ , Michelle would say, before nodding as her latest student says, “The Blue Danube, right?”

Not music, that mortal ears hear, but Music. Sound that Is.

Boh’s hands hover briefly over the piano, but something tells him  _ not yet _ . Something in his mind that knows this is a moment of respite, that the piano is for a larger eventuality. The Remembrance.

The Ticking Man cocks his head as though listening for something behind the music, but the music swells as though aurally nudging him away from whatever it is that is trying to call his attention.

Not yet.

Part of the puzzle isn’t here yet, of course; their Bound Ones are still outside. Trying to come in, of course, but Humans do not have the ways of Geists; walls do not yield at their passing so readily (although, in Ivy’s case, it can be a near thing).

Boh turns away from the piano and holds out his hand to the Ticking Man, who straightens up and accepts it.

They are not contemporaries, these two gentlemen-ghosts-Geists-Gods, but where does Time matter less than in Death, unless one is very unlucky? Ordinary music may have a time  _ signature _ , but that’s incidental to Music, and Music is what has called them here.   
  
So they dance, and if Miss Lily ever left Ivy’s side she would perhaps offer them one of her rare smiles at the sight. They move fluidly, waltzing across the stage, stepping adroitly around twilight piano and modern cracked floorboards alike. When Boh tires of leading the Ticking Man senses it and twirls him, shifting their positions with adept, smiling grace. Though they no longer precisely have bodies, their nonexistent muscles know these movements with years of experience they require no Remembrance to recall.

The song plays as long as it needs to, and the dancers do not tire. Their Bound Ones will arrive when they arrive, and the tumult of Remembering will begin. For now all that matters is Music and with it Movement. For this moment, there is peace.


End file.
